We, The Green Runners, Badvertising and Flight Free UK, call on running event organisers whose races are sponsored by Wizz Air to ditch the airline at the next opportunity and to sign the Cool Down Network’s Fossil Free Declaration.

Flying in the face of climate breakdown, budget airline Wizz Air are encouraging runners to rack up carbon emissions all for the sake of running points. And what do running points make? More carbon emissions. Wizz Air sponsor races across Europe, with runners accumulating points for each kilometre run at one of their events. The runner with the highest total number of points by the end of the competition wins two All You Can Fly passes.

There’s no hiding from the fact they are incentivising runners to take as many short hop flights as possible as “Amateur runners are encouraged to participate in as many WIZZ-sponsored events as possible to maximize their points”.

We’ve estimated that someone living in London who enters the nine events would rack up an eye-watering 5.4 tonnes of CO2e (we’ve included emissions arising from the 20 Euro Wizz Air voucher that every Skopje runner receives). To put that in context, the estimated carbon emissions per capita in the UK in 2024 was 4.5 tonnes CO2e.

What’s more, Wizz Air vouchers are offered as part of the race price packages.

Wizz Air are putting two fingers up to those that are concerned by the climate crisis.

We don’t expect Wizz Air to listen to us. But we implore race event organisers who’ve partnered with Wizz Air to think again. Your races should be a celebration of running and a healthy life. Not only are you allowing Wizz Air to use our sport for sportswashing, your race is part of a chain of carbon emission intensive events.

Event organisers of Wizz Air Warsaw, Wizz Air Budapest, Wizz Air London, Wizz Air Skopje, Wizz Air Sofia, Wizz Air Rome and Wizz Air Venice, Wizz Air Milan and Wizz Air Cluj-Napoca, it’s time to clean up your act. Please ditch Wizz Air at the next available opportunity. We also encourage you to sign the Cool Down Network’s Fossil Free Declaration and put an end to sportswashing.

If you feel as strongly as we do about this then we encourage you to write to the event organisers and sign our petition.

Damian Hall, co-founder of The Green Runners: “By allowing sportwashing and actively encouraging more emissions when scientists are imploring us to do the opposite, Ealing Half and other Wizz Air races are flying in the face of our climate and ecological emergency. Heat, extreme weather, wildfires and air pollution pose a huge health risk, races are getting cancelled, athletes are getting ill and even dying. Please sign the petition to make it clear Big Polluters are not welcome in our sport.”

Liam Killeen, campaigner at Badvertising: “Running should be about moving people towards a healthier, more sustainable future - not encouraging them to take as many short-haul flights around Europe as possible. Wizz Air is exploiting people’s passion for running to normalise frequent flying, turning climate breakdown into a marketing opportunity. Race organisers have a choice: they can continue to give polluting sponsors like Wizz Air a platform to launder their reputation, or they can protect the integrity of their sport and stand up for a liveable climate."

Anna Hughes Director for Flight Free UK: “Participating in running events shouldn’t have to involve a flight. There are so many other ways to travel around Europe to take part in races, but it’s not easy to reduce how much we fly when airlines actively promote and reward people for taking multiple short haul climate-bashing flights. We need to send a message to event organisers that the climate matters, especially when climate change effects get closer to home each year.”

Prior to publishing this petition The Green Runners wrote to eight of the race organisers offering to discuss our concerns. Only Ealing Half Marathon replied, resulting in a constructive and open conversation about sportswashing.

References
Sportswashing https://thegreenrunners.com/sportswashing-drop-polluting-sponsors/

Wizz Air races https://www.wizzair.com/en-gb/information-and-services/about-us/wizzrunning

Carbon Emissions data https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions

Carbon Emissions calculator  https://co2.myclimate.org/en/calculate_emissions

Fossil Free Declaration https://www.cooldownclimate.org/the-fossil-free-declaration

The Green Runners

We are an international running community of over 1,000 members making changes for a fitter planet. Our mission is to use the power of community to challenge ourselves and the running industry, by taking individual pledges and organising collective actionism around our four pillars of how we travel, eat, kit up and speak out.  Our founding members include GB ultrarunners Damian Hall, Jasmin Paris and Dan Lawson

https://thegreenrunners.com/

Badvertising

Badvertising is a campaign challenging the advertising industry’s role in driving climate and ecological breakdown. We expose and challenge advertising that promotes high-carbon products and lifestyles, from fossil fuels and their financiers, to aviation and SUVs.

https://www.badverts.org/

Flight Free UK

Flight Free UK is a charity that encourages people to travel without flying. We educate the public about the climate impact of aviation, and give information and inspiration for travelling by other means. We run the Flight Free Challenge which asks people to take one year off flying to reduce emissions, break a habit and try the alternatives.

Flight Free UK https://flightfree.co.uk/